Liquor license application fraud not limited to guesthouses

 
VEREENIGING. – It seems it is not only guesthouses that have been exposed to liquor license application fraud as was reported in last week’s edition of Vaalweekblad. “Guesthouses were indeed targeted, but the rot goes throughout the liquor licensing industry. Liquor license applicants in Gauteng and other provinces have been exposed to bogus liquor license consultants for some years now, and there is no end in sight,” says Mr Frik Liebenberg of a local Business Advisory Service.

Vaalweekblad has last week exposed Heleen Voget, aka Elizabeth Johnson, aka Elizabeth du Toit as a bogus liquor license consul-tant. (Vaalweekblad 4/8/17). This unfortunately seems to be only the tip of the iceberg.

“It appears that people wanting to make a quick buck are climbing on the bandwagon and become ‘liquor license consultants.’ In the sixteen years that I worked as a liquor license consultant I came across many such cases. Recently I saw advertisements for liquor license applications in terms of section 24 of the Gauteng Liquor Act placed in the Star newspaper outside the prescribed time frame as stipulated in the act. This clearly points to a bogus consultant. No new liquor license will be approved on a residential or agricultural zoned premises unless the relevant municipality issues confirmation in writing that such an application may proceed. All reputable liquor license consultants will refuse to do an application on such premises unless a municipal approval is attached,” says Liebenberg.

He says the most disturbing fact is that some SAPS members are moonlighting as liquor license consultants.

“This is clearly a conflict of interest. These SAPS members are sought after because they are the ‘right’ person to know for obvious reasons. Recently when I went to transfer a liquor license from the seller to the purchaser of a restaurant on the seller’s instruction, I was told that a high ranking SAPS officer is dealing with the transfer. There are also businesses operating for years on a property where the zoning or land use right does not allow such a type of business. The liquor license consultant, as I am told, was an SAPS member.”

Liquor license applications are specialised in that the consultant must not only fully understands the Liquor act, but understand the basic legal aspects surrounding land use rights, influence of the juristic person on the application and many more. The applicant can find himself or herself in a position that if an application fails, a fresh application may not be lodged within twelve months of refusal, resulting in the applicant tied up in a lease contract on an empty shop for up to eighteen months.